My eco solution to rat problems

[craftyhunnypie]

Hi everyone, as my delivery date for my cube is drawing nearing, we have been looking round for suitable chookies & decided that garden poultry will be where we get our newbies for the cube from. I am having the cube and the normal run. Now I know that Omlet said 6 girlies will be fine in there, but hubby is thinking of getting 4 newbies, not 3! That would make the total to 7. Would that be o.k or is his pushing his luck? The newbies will have a couple of days in the mark2, whilst my 3 original omlet hens get used to the cube & the ladder. Then the newbies will all go in together with the Omlet hens in the cube! If 6 is the max, then so be it - but hubby wants his own chook! please help & advise me!

I'm thinking of pekin bantams & seabrights for the mark2 then - although after seeing some battery hens that are now living in a purple mk2, they really pull at my heart strings (Fizzy & Fudge). Been thinking a lot about battery hens at the moment, wish ~I could do more for them!

 

Looking forward to you all putting me straight on my numbers for my cube & reporting back to hubby!!!!!

 

Emma.x

[Gallina]

I think the standard run with the Cube is a bit small for seven chickens if they are shut in most of the time. If they get let out a lot, it is fine.

 

The Cube itself is so big that I am sure that fourteen could sleep comfortably (I am not joking).

 

As you will have the Eglu simultaneously, why not give the Cube a try without the extension?

 

I suspect that it will take longer than you think before you put the new hens in with the old. I had forgotten how small and vulnerable the new ones would be, and it was three weeks before I felt they were feisty enough to cope.

[Martin B]

7 is fine.

[BeckyBoo]

I agree with Gallina, we've got 7 chickens in a cube and you could have double in there, but we have the extension on the run and even then they could do with another extension. It'll be better when ours are out and about but at the moment they're in the run all the time and I certainly wouldn't want any more in there. If you're shelling out for the cube, go the whole hog and get the extension, then you can get more chooks!

 

Mrs Bertie

[craftyhunnypie]

The cube will be assembled on the Wednesday even tho it should arrive Tuesday 7th August, then we are going chooky shopping on the Saturday. ~So I'll have plenty of time to think how many will be ok in there.

We couldn't go the whole hog as all the places we can move the cube around to are set sizes and would not accomodate the extension as well, plus I still need room to put my mark2 eglu.

We've got it all planned so that we can see the cube & the mk2 from the kitchen window!!! They will also be in the part of the garden near to where we sit most, so they will get loads & loads of company - oh & they will be near hubby's workshop shed where he has his radio on! I've told you they love the charts & radio 2!!!!

 

I want to get the introductions done asap hopefully! I'll see how little they are when I fetch them!

 

Emma.x

[Sheilaz]

...all situations and chicken personalities are different but; I actually found that my latest newbies were so small that they showed instant submission (mostly by legging it away from the others) and have certainly not seemed like a threat to the others.

They were supposedly POL but must have been several weeks off that, which meant they could run fast & had the sense not to get in between the hens & food. This was in a larger flock, but nevertheless, I think they were accepted quickly because there was no question of them being a threat.

I'm sure if I'd waited until real POL they would have been fiesty and would have needed more warning pecks.

Just a thought.